JAN MAYEN ISLAND. 167 



was raised by some sailors, having suffered the ca- 

 lamity of shipwreck ; but after personally examin- 

 ing the phenomenon from the mast-head, for up- 

 wards of an hour, I was convinced that it could be 

 nothing else than the feeble action of a volcano. 

 The smoke was projected with great velocity, and 

 seemed to rise to twice the height of the land, or 

 about 4000 feet. On mentioning tliis circumstance 

 to Captain Gilyott of the Richard of Hull, he in- 

 formed me, that, while employed in killing seals in 

 the neighbourhood of this island, in the same month 

 of the year 1818, he observed a similar appear- 

 ance. The smoke he saw frequently ; and once he 

 noticed a shining redness resembling the embers of 

 an immense fire. He called his officers to observe 

 it, and humorously intimated that the Moon had 

 landed on Jan Mayen ! 



This fact serves to account for some strange 

 noises heard by seven Dutch seamen, who attempt- 

 ed to winter here in the year 1633-4. In the be- 

 ginning of the night of the 8th of September, in 

 particular, they " were frightened by a noise, as if 

 something had fallen very heavy upon the ground, 

 but saw nothing." This, instead of being the fall 

 of an iceberg, as some have supposed, was probably 

 a volcanic phenomenon. 



These seven seamen seem to have been the only 

 human beings who ever passed the winter in Jan 

 Mayen. They belonged to the Dutch whale-fish- 



